DREAMS 



Louise Cann Ranum 




Copyright N^. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSm 



DREAMS 



DREAMS 

LOUISE CANN RANUM 




THE POET LORE COMPANY 

BOSTON 
I9IO 



Copyright 1910 by Louise Cann Ranutu 



All Rights Keserved 



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1 


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The Gorham Press, Boston, u, S. a. 



©CLA261926 



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TO A TOR 

without whom these ''Dreams'' could not 
have known thus much of realization 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Lovers Exaltation 1 1 

Yearning ^4 

Gifts 15 

Autumn ^" 

Translucency ^7 

Vlnfidele 18 

The Dead Love 20 

''Sweet Will You Come To-nightf. . . 21 

The Quest 23 

The Woman Misunderstood 25 

The Wordless Soul 27 

The Height 28 

Experience 29 

''O Jocund Day '' 30 

Sea-Ardor 3 1 

Melancholy 32 

Devotion 33 

''Sweet Mother Mine'' 34 

7 



CONTENTS 

Page 

Inconstancy 35 

Oh, the Thrill of Life 36 

Godspeed to 37 

A Cry .. 38 

Lovers 39 

Friend, Savior 41 

The Little Town 42 

Stanford Hills 44 

Leon 45 

Sonnet to the Santa Clara Valley 46 

Enone 47 



DREAMS 



LOVE'S EXALTATION 

Dear bland-eyed love, let us not striving fret, 
And in small quarrels wear soul's peace away, 
Filling our hearts with bitter dull regret 
That pilfers earnest joy from our joint-day; 
But let us clasp hands understandingly 
Each letting love flow forth to bathe the other 
tenderly. 

As when spring-wind from balmy South o'er- 

flows 
And washes in warm waves the deadened 

earth 
And vivifies the waiting seed, bestows 
Color, sweet scents, and song throughout 

land's girth, 
Pours vernal joy into man's heart and beast's, 
Carries the bursting fertile fruit at lusty 

Spring's brave feasts 

And sings in praise of life in Spring's glad 
choir. 

So shall our loves commingled form a stream 

Fructifying, and renew the fire 

Of youth in our sad hearts, the tender dream 

Of joy, that scatters bloom in life's stem 
ways. 

Turns life to spring and lifts the soul to soar- 
ing praise. 



II 



For love from the soul with eyes of glamor 

looks 
And sees an ash-heap golden In the dawn 
And augurs fortune from dark circling rooks 
And catches wondrous rainbow ends out- 
drawn 
In gemmy gossamer along the hedge, 
Where vulgar eyes see only cobwebs on the 
dewy ledge. 

Ah, with what magic glamor In his mind 
Love dignifies the plainness of a hut 
And glow of friendship feels for all mankind 
And pleasure takes In labor's narrow rut! 
Love unifies all varied ends of life. 
Love is a sea will drown at last hatred's, 
envy's, mad strife. 

O dearest friend, there are broad noble 

heights 
Where two who love may dwell with holy 

work. 
Smile at the sordid gains, the withering 

blights. 
The foolish ends that In the world's maze 

lurk. 
May nourish great-eyed beauty and pure 

thought, 
May safely pass those stony depths with 

poisoning sorrows fraught 

Where one, unaided by affection's strength, 
Must perish miserably. Ah, dear one, sweet, 
12 



Companion mine throughout the deathless 

length 
Of all Eternity, my lips yours greet — 
Your tender honeyed lips — with eager kiss, 
And my eyes seek the glistening grey of yours 

to blend in bliss 

Their azure with those beryl depths like seas 
Whose tender hyaline screens ocean's vast 
And wondrous fabled unknown monarchies 
From curious invasions, till, at last. 
Emotion breaks the crystalline, and I, 
Into the thousand splendors of your soul, pas- 
sionate fly. 



13 



YEARNING 

I know where the cataract leaps, 
Biting the rock with gleaming teeth, 
Laughing wildly to echoing steeps, 
Flinging sunward an irised wreath. 

I know where the plaint of the thrush, 
Languidly floats o'er a twilit glade, — 
Lying warm in a moon-white hush. 
Sweet with pale evening blooms that fade 

E're dawn; and the wanderer's heart 
Thrills at the haunting, poignant song, 
With sad desire, with dreams that start 
Yearningly from memory's throng. 

I know where the lonely lake 
An opal lies the hills atween. 
And the little moon, a silver snake. 
Twists where the shadows mar the sheen 

Of the waves. I know where the deep 
Mid-stream lures two who love and long. 
Mouth pressed to mouth, their bliss to keep 
In death beneath the river's song. 



14 



GIFTS 

Joy that the gurgling lips of the sea, 
The gilded hps of the summer sea, 
Thrill through my iris soul refreshed 
By laughter of ripples sun-enmeshed, 
This pearl in my soul, I bring to thee. 

Song that the bounding rivers sing 

To tameless height and smiling plain 

Then into ocean reckless fling, 

Forgetful of the travail long, 

i\nger and wail and triumph pain 

That go to the birth of such tribute song,. — 

This song that the rivers pay to sea. 

Such song in my soul I sing to thee. 

Thought that the mountains of my youth, 
The glaciered mountains, storm-assailed, 
Spoke to my soul as earth's best truth. 
Urge that of feeble dust makes gods 
Ever aspiring toward heights unsealed. 
Word of the spirit to earth's poor clods — 
Thought that the heights cry urgently. 
Such thought brings my yearning mind to 
thee. 

Love that the mystic mother of me, 
The opulent, cryptic mother of me, 
A perfumed wine in my heart distills 
From all the life that my red heart fills, 
I pour on the altar I build for thee. 



15 



AUTUMN 

Dreaming of one In the dead-blue autumn 

mists 
Who late with scarlet lips my own lips kissed. 
O tragic autumn mists ! 
Veiling the mourner who by summer late was 

kissed. 

To-day rain fell In glistening drops like tears, 
And earth and I sad mourners were with fears 
That with the joyous years 
Had summer gone with all the warmth, the 
love, that cheers. 



i6 



TRANSLUCENCY 

You call this joy mef 
Oh, blind! What Is 
This crimson radiancy 
But him in all 
I do or say or see. 



17 



LINFIDELE 

She clasped her little pallid hands, 
And thus to her soul she spoke : 

*'I have forgotten the future's remorse, 
I have forgotten Its pain, 
I have forgotten the scorching course 
I shall travel again. 

"O God In Heaven, do you look down 
And see the sins we do? 
O God In Heaven, spare your frown; 
For this one I shall rue. 

"This one I shall rue, O God, 
Yea, for It I'll pay; 
For It I'll feel the avenging rod, 
The scourge without allay 

"Of the guilty heart that tender Is 
And Its ownself doth flay. 
All this for a luscious traltor-kiss — 
A dark eye's eager ray! 

"This Is the sin of lusty youth 
With 'Life !' Its breathless cry. 
And this Its dreadful throe. In sooth. 
When life comes smiling by; 

"And yet for the touch of a crimson lip, 
The gleam from an ardent eye, 

i8 



Vd give the blessed fellowship 
Prepared for us on High; 

"And I'll give the sober wholesome joy 
Of an honest life well-spent 
For the stolen rapture time must cloy 
And end In slow torment. 

"So, God In Heaven, here's my Hell, 
My little Hell In mirth. 
While you In endless quiet dwell 
And watch the sailing earth." 

She loosed her gold hair's shining bands, 
Her wedded vows she broke. 



19 



THE DEAD LOVE 

A dead love wakes in its tomb 

To knock at my secret heart,. — 

O living love, O blythe love, 

Shall I give that love a part 

Of the jocund feast for you outspread 

Here in my secret heart? 

Shall the dead love sit at our feast 
To mock with its death's-head grin 
Our living love, our blythe love^ — 
Shall we let the dead love in ? 
Out in the cold it knocks 
And wails for the might-have-been. 

We sit at our feast of mirth; 
But the spectral dead love there, 
O living love, O blythe love, 
Pollutes with death's taint the air 
Of this our musk-filled room, — 
That dead love shivering there ! 

We sit at our feast of mirth, 
And the dead love steals between. 
O living love, O blythe love, 
Our joy is dead I ween, 
For the haunting dead love's ghost 
Has stolen our love atween. 



20 



'SWEET, WILL YOU COME 
TO-NIGHT" 



Sweet, will you come to-night 
With all your body white, 
Your slender body bright, 
My soul to feast? 



Not foam from waters' whirl, 
Not moonsheen on a pearl, 
More candid shines, my girl, 
Than your soft throat/ 



The sapphire of your veins 
Enmeshes satin reins. 
Shimmer of iris stains 
Your bosom bland, 



Twin rosy blooms complete 
Your pale breasts' garden sweet. 
Rose stains your pearly feet. 
Like white leaves dancing. 



21 



s 



Love, will you come to-night, 
With your small mouth's delight. 
The scarlet lips so right 
For long sweet kissing? 



Oh, you will bring deep joy, 
Great mirth without alloy, 
Passion that shall not cloy, 
My milk-white dove ! 



22 



THE QUEST 



Out of the West come I, 
With my love of the sky, 
Of mountains high 
And grey with age-old 
Glaciers cold; 



Aye, with my love of the sea 
And its gnawing ceaselessly 
On the littoral's argentry. 
I from the West, 
With my zest 



For life, and my quest 
That denies me rest. 
Leaves me a guest, 
Not a host, In each spot 
Where I stop — 



Whither, O spirit occult. 
Must I fare to consult 
The priest of my cult 
And gain the key 
To the mystery? 

23 



5 



Eastward, still eastward, I go, 
Heeding a voice's low 
Love-call; yet know, 
Not love of the sky 
Or the high 



Earth-peaks or the sea. 

Not faring endlessly. 

Will bring to me 

More than a half-guessed word 

Faintly heard 



In the thick obscurity. 

In the midst of eternity, 

So shall I be 

As a child eager-eyed, 

Knowledge-denied. 



24 



THE WOMAN MISUNDERSTOOD 

"Of abandonment the height I know, 

The terror, the bliss; 

Of scorn and its scathing blow, 

Its torturing shame, 

Gods, who mock us below, 

1 know, most bitterly know. 

"I have wasted my pearls before swine, 

My pearls of the soul; 

I have scattered the amber wine 

For mirth meant, for love — 

The spirit's deep passion divine, 

For swine, dull grovelling swine ! 

"And the lightning from heaven has brought 

Derision of Gods, 

Who laugh at the poor soul untaught 

Its hell to accept,— 

The soul that has endlessly wrought 

And building, gained endlessly naught. 

"Do you place us In life for your sport, 

O Gods of the air? 

Is the comic for you life's Import, 

While dreaming you rest 

And smile on the futile effort 

Of soul by the human distort? 

"My gems you have stolen, O life, 

My youth and my joy, 

My faith In the honor of strife, 

25 



The virtue of love; 

And I grope where negations stand rife 

Soul to slay with denial's keen knife. 

"My clear soul like a pale amber stream 

To sea hurries on. 

May the sea's vast bring calm without dream, 

Nirvana profound, 

No least ray of consciousness' gleam 

To trouble soul's still voided dream!" 



26 



THE WORDLESS SOUL 

My poor soul trembles Inarticulate, 
Voiceless for all the beauty It doth know, 
For all the love and hate that through It 

flow,— 
The endless aspiration passionate; 
A pallid silent soul disconsolate. 
No surcease from Its agony expressed, 
No calm ecstatic from mad joy confessed. 
No supreme mood by high art consecrate. 

Oh, if but once In that mellifluous voice 
Of him, the last strange sad Endymlon, 
Whose broken life, like the wounded reed of 

the lute. 
Makes music, my quick soul might soft trans- 
mute 
Spirit to word, then hush eonlan 
Might speech o^erpall, yet grateful soul re- 
joice I 



27 



THE HEIGHT 

There is a place where wild thyme blows, 

Where the breeze that flows 

Bears a bit of the sea's tang 

In its kiss; 

And this 

My heart knows 

Is the height the poet sang. 

This place with the spice of the thyme, 

And the wind's sea-rhyme, 

And the silver sands sheer below, 

Where sea's foam 

Sinks home, 

Is the height sublime 

We shall not know. 



28 



EXPERIENCE 

Blame not the joys I have gathered, 
Aloes and wormwood at core; 
Praise that a wisdom I've captured 
From the wild fruit's bitter store ! 



29 



''O JOCUND DAY " 

O jocund day with old wind's revellings! 

Clouds tower and splash the azure 

With their pearl, 

Yon hill wanders In happy violet maze, 

Its green-gold fields blending in varied haze. 

Leaves whirl 

Pallid with pleasure 

To the gay measure of wind's travellings. 

Nasturtiums giddy dance at window ledge, 
Beckon with gaudy heads 
To lusty bees, 

With golden laughter answer jolly wind, 
Allure the flitting hummer, ruby-chinned, 
Who flees 
Their nectar-beds. 

Laden unconscious with hushed love's dear 
pledge. 



30 



SEA-ARDOR 

Enwomb me In your beryl depths, O sea, 
Turn all my rosy warmth to argent white. 
Make me a sweet new foam-kissed Aphrodite, 
A sea-green siren, golden hair flung free; 
Fill me with sportive waves' contagious glee, 
Nip me with every ripple's briny bite. 
With your great liquid kiss o'erwash me 

quite, 
Enslave me with your rhythmic tyranny. 

I'd lure swarth sailors with my clinging kiss; 
With cold-eyed Iridescent fish I'd stray 
And riot through the iris of cool spray,— 
A vital pulse. In ocean's stormy play. 
Soft after sport, I'd sink to charmed bliss, 
Nirvana, in the soundless dim abyss. 



31 



MELANCHOLY 

A wintry sun that mocks trees' nakedness, 
And flouts the attenuate shadows' gloom of 

grey; 
An empty sky, whose vast blue cloudlessness 
An added chill lends to this joyless day. 

Sparrows in crowds wallow in roadway dust, 

No flower gives grace to gardens hoar with 
cold; 

The lake's gay flocks their gamboling glad- 
ness must 

Exchange for Trappist rule in winter's fold. 

When Ice in sullen stillness bars them in. 
And I an alien in this bitter land ! 
Without sweet friend, or home, or loving kin. 
I sometimes dream my lost ones touch my 
hand. 



32 



DEVOTION 

If life exacted toll for seven years, 
A weary toil, besteeped In bitter tears, 
But gave, dear love, at end of all, your kiss, 
The weary toll, the bitter tears, were bliss. 



33 



r 



''SWEET MOTHER MINE** 

Sweet mother mine, your sorrows I would 

take 
And In their place set smiling red-lipped joy, 
Compelling gladness misery to destroy, 
And thirsting soul with comfort deep to 

slake. 
Oh, I would every day a festal make 
And your dear head with benedictions crown, 
Put triumph where despair doth darkly 

frown. 
Heal with fulfillment weary life's heart- 
break ! 

That one so beautiful and kind should know 
Such bitter hours, with racking worries rife, 
See hope and love crumble to choking dust. 
Fills me with consternation and a woe 
Above the personal— makes thought but lust 
To wrest an answer from the grim Sphinx, 
Life. 



34 



INCONSTANCY 

Not more restless than my heart 
Is the restless sea ; 
Not more vagrant than my heart 
Is the great wind's vagrancy. 
Fleeting as the opal sheen 
Sunrise spills on ocean's green 
Are the fleet moods of my heart. 
Fluid is this world of change, 
Fluid are the thoughts that range 
To seize on meanings of the change; 
Fluid as the torrent stream 
That hastes to die in ocean's dream 
Is emotion in my heart. 



M 



OH, THE THRILL OF LIFE 

Oh, the thrill of life. 

The stir of beauty-love 

In my soul 

On this April day! 

With all above 

And below, from mole 

To lark, rife 

With lust to be, 

Adream of the coming May, 

Amorous as the moon-thralled sea. 



36 



GODSPEED TO 

To you the gladness 
Of the spring; 

The joy 

Of the boy 

In life; 

The verve 

Of the eager wing 

For goal! 



37 



A CRY 

A sorrow too deep for tears, 

Too deep for tears and for words— 

A sorrow that shrivels my soul. 

I cry to the soundless abyss, 

Where the millions have sunk; 

I cry, and my cry echoes back 

Unanswered and vain. 

A sorrow too deep for tears; 

A sorrow that wails for end; 

A sorrow that pleads for a ray 

Of joy from the stores of the gods; 

A sorrow that blights with the fright 

Of a destiny black with despair,— 

My burden to bear ! 



38 



LOVERS 

Heavy-eyed Zenobia Is my lover. 
She woos me with her dark sad eyes. 
To mine she sets the fragrant lure 
Of her lips, and her cheeks satin 
Flushes to tempt me. 

O dark-eyed Zenobia, In vain 

Your sighs ! Not your tears 

Move me, tears turning your eyes 

To amber; not the pleading of your yearning 

White-skinned arms, eager to hold me; 

Not your promise of passion and joy; 
Not your mystery, unfathomable Zenobia; 
Not your slave-like devotion, oblivion 
Of self; not these can snare me 
Teach me to love your little hands 

And the crinkling golden web of your hair. 
For I, Zenobia, love not women. 
Manhood I love and him who most perfectly 
Embodies it. He Is lusty as earth. 
Clean-limbed and strong, ruddy 
As life. Him I love 

And serve, him know as master; 
Him know as enemy, the enemy 
Passion creates. His lips are more sweet 
Than the mead of the gods. 
And his breath on my throat 



39 



Fiercer than Sirocco wooing Italia. 
When his teeth bite jestingly 
Into the snow of my bosom, 
Swoon I for bliss, and the flame 
Of his eyes burns me with pain 

Dearer than joy. Him I love, 

O Zenobia, him I adore. He is my cult, 

The man my womanhood craves. 

Not you for lover, O Zenobia, but him, 

For he is my completion. 



40 



FRIEND, SAVIOR 

In that dark hour 

When In the universe 

No drop for me 

Lies hid of sympathy, 

My poor sad soul 

Goes blind from bitterness 

In terror faint 

Of the blighting power 

Of Isolation. 

I then adverse 

View even love 

And stagger hopeless, 

Helpless, In the tenebrae 

Of my own mind. 

Then list I for the word 

That never comes; 

For I am deaf, 

Through roar of felling thoughts, 

And cannot hear aright 

The word I yearn. 

Oh, without you, dear friend, 

I should e'er now 

My way have lost 

In those drear caverns 

Of my tortured soul 

And Into madness fall'n 

Or fearful death ! 



41 



THE LITTLE TOWN 

little town, amid the sun-wooed hills, 

1 love you for the orient blossom-maze 
That perfumes all your gardened silent w^ays 
And for the glistening topaz of your rills 
That many-voiced charm your mellow days. 

The tender stir of argent olive leaves, 
The eucalyptus foil's metallic tone, 
The murmur of acacia newly-blown 
When on its golden lyre the young wind 

breathes. 
Recall my distant spirit to its own. 

Though other lands have charmed my va- 
grant heart, 
i\nd love's enchantment elsewhere fettered me. 
No spot with such sweet golden revery 
In my imagination plays its part. 
There evening lures the shadows tenderly 

From the still bosom of the amber slopes, 
And the gay fountain sinks down murm'rously. 
While kill-deers, flitting, call out plaintively 
To lovers wandering where green oval copes 
The glancing fountain playing stealthily. 

There all is mystic beauty, day and night: 
A bright fresh dawn, a golden drowsy noon, 
An eve delicious, with a cool white moon 
That loosens fairy rays of nacreous light 
To skip and glide to night-wind's eery rune. 
42 



I love you, humble little town, in sooth ! 
Not solely for the beauty of your street 
But for a year with vivid life replete, 
For wisdom drawn from bite of sorrow's 

tooth. 
For noble joy from friendship tried and 

sweet. 



43 



STANFORD HILLS 

How oft in dreams I steal across the world 
To scale the amber slopes of Stanford Hills, 
Along their wraiths of sun-sucked arid rills, 
To heights where sea-wind flies with wings 

dew-pearled ! 
Those heights o'erlook broad valley-lands, 

unfurled 
By summit gained, where gold acacia fills 
With fragrance faint that lotus-vale; clear 

thrills 
Sweet meadow-lark,— jests fall by mockers 

skirled. 

In dreams again I live the lowlands' spell, 
The charm of homes in gardens, clustered 

close. 
The pleasant loit'ring in a friendly fold; 
Yet yearn but on the bright still height to 

dwell, 
Where heaven's azure splashes summit's 

gold, 
Whence outlook large earth-walls can ne'er 

oppose. 



44 



LEON 

Under the softly pacing stars 
I dream of him, my swarth Leon; 
Not half the world's great distance bars 
My swift heart from its own. 

Under the dim dark canopy 

Of heaven's night-sky, star-bedecked, 

I know again the tyranny 

Of black eyes, amber-flecked. 

Under the moon's enchantment pale, 
When brain reels in the lucent night, 
I tread anew the narrow dale 
That knows his footstep light. 

Always at night, my heart*s-desire, 
My haunting ne'er-to-be, makes moan. 
My endless, yearning dreams aspire 
To him, my swarth Leon. 



45 



SONNET TO THE SANTA CLARA 
VALLEY 

Sweet Santa Clara, mistress of the sun, 
Who woos you daily with his ardent rays 
And sends for gift his genial golden days, 
With tribute fruitage from the dark earth 

won, 
The swift glad days shed perfume as they run 
And veil you in an amethystine haze 
Of violets, wistaria, a maze 
Of bloom in auric mesh by sun's love spun. 
When thoughts stray back to you, dear vale 

of light. 
And dreams of magic hours in you passed by 
Possess me with their mystic reveries, 
I yearn to thread once more your meadows 

bright, 
Among your golden poppy beds to lie. 
And hear the gallant sun's love-symphonies. 



46 



ENONE 

Sweet was the night, and low the waters sang. 
The little moon peered out to bid godspeed, 
And through my heart that ancient epic rang 
Of Paris on Mount Ida and his deed 
That won the favor of the Paphlan queen. 

Sweet was the night, and low the waters sang. 
The fields lay flat and amber in the moon, 
Perfume of eucalypti sent Its tang 
To play where Jasmine over-sweet did swoon. 
Yet still of Paris was my wandering dream; 

And life grew dim and faded far away: 
The soul of me Enone's sorrow viewed, 
When heedless Paris, flushed, forgot to stay. 
Left her to die he had so warmly wooed. 
Left her and eager for the prize, went forth. 

Sweet was the night, and low the waters sang; 
And on I wandered, thought of Paris strong, 
When some lone sombre bird, darting, up- 

sprang, 
Giving a startled, plaintive cry, and long. 
The lone bird ceased; the grove lay dusk and 

still. 

And then I thought me of another time, 
A later lover who his love forgot 
For prize of fortune, in a nearer clime; 
And down I sate to dream of him, God wot! 
And by the singing waters shed quick tears. 
47 



WAV ^,3 1910 



One copy del. to Cat. Div. 



\^Kt ^3 mv^ 



